He Loves Me He Loves Me Not
by dave-d
Summary: Hinata and Naruto had begun dating. They had been a couple for a number of months. But, they never shared even a single kiss. Did that mean he wasn't really interested in her?


It was the nicest Spring day imaginable.

Swallows were darting about overhead, swooping low along the ground, and then flashing high yet again, doing their part to keep the insect population down.

A gentle breeze caused the entire vast filed of daisies to sway this way and that, as if they were bowing or taking part in some kind of ancient and stately dance. Bees hovered above blossoms, before landing and getting to work. Colorful groups of butterflies looked like living gardens in the sky.

The village was doing well. All of the recent crops had been bountiful. The numbers of calves, lambs, and foals had reached new time highs. Shinobi were in greater demand than ever before, after the defeat of Akatsuki and the death of Orochimaru. Craftsmen had more contracts than they knew what to do with.

"Everything is so wonderful." Hinata sighed. Indeed, her life had taken a turn for the better, after Uchiha Sasuke returned to the village. Sakura had transferred her growing affection for Naruto to her long missing teammate, doing her best to help him find forgiveness in his own heart, and in the hearts of suspicious townspeople. "She tells me that Naruto cares for me…." If Sakura said that, it had to be true, _didn't_ it? Who knew Naruto better than her? One person did. Herself. And she was uncertain.

The sound of laughter grew louder and louder. Hinata soon found out why. It was Ten Ten. She was dragging Neji behind her, no doubt taking him to their favorite place by the brook. She blushed, knowing what they would be doing. Kissing. A whole lot of kissing. Ten Ten had been very patient. Patient and determined. She had won Neji's heart before he even had a clue what was happening.

"I'm glad brother Neji is happy." Hinata looked out over the vast sea of bobbing white flower heads. It almost looked as if a sudden snowfall had dropped a season's worth of snow on the tranquil landscape. She waved, when her cousin and her friend caught sight of her. It truly was nice that her quiet kin had found someone. It had been difficult for him, growing up in the Branch family, his mother and father dead. But, he hadn't been the first one in the family to find love. Hanabi had a crush on a boy in the neighborhood, and her father had surprised them all by saying that he was courting a young widow in the Hyuuga clan.

It wasn't as if she didn't have good fortune of her own. And, on a relative scale, her level of good luck would have to exceed that of the rest of her family combined. Her dream had been realized. For a number of months, she and Naruto had been dating. Well, after a fashion. He was very busy with training and missions, and spent a lot of time making certain that Sakura was treating Sasuke right. Naturally that pissed off both of his friends no end. He had told her that she could come with him on those 'missions,' but she knew how she would feel if the tables were turned.

The change of the seasons had not been kind to plants and livestock alone. Almost like magic, the shinobi of the Leaf were pairing up, giving their hearts away. At least, that was true of the Rookie Nine and their close friends. Ino had somehow managed to catch Shikamaru's fancy, as bothersome as love and courtship might be. Choji had stumbled upon a small petite girl who appreciated him for who he was, not how he looked. Sai had paired up with a girl who had been part of a Root cell that he had known nothing about. She was just as clueless as he was, and the combination never ceased to have people scratching their head one moment, and then running for cover in the next. Kiba had boasted about being a lone wolf, a man that no one woman could tie down. Then, after a few dates with a girl from the class after theirs, he turned out to be nothing more than a puppy dog. Lee had a number of girls interested in him, too. But, in a devastatingly drastic travesty of honor and loyalty, he promised that he wouldn't date anyone until his sensei did. Gai wasn't having any better luck that before.

"Shino is happy, too." Hinata smiled, seeing a bee land on the flower nearest to her. The Kamizuru clan was a clan of bee users from Iwagakure that had once tried to lead an invasion force into Konoha, only to be repelled and largely killed by the more experienced Aburame clan. It had thought that the last of that clan had died; but, those assumptions were premature. A girl from the Village Hidden Amongst the Rocks had participated in the last Chuunin exams, where Shino had been a proctor. With their distant family history, they should have been like oil and water. Instead, they were like magnet and steel. That might explain why they were joined at the lips every time that Hinata stumbled across them.

Hinata put a hand to her lips. _Kissing. _That was the real issue for her. She and Naruto had grown close as a couple, but they hadn't kissed. Not one single time. What was she to make of something like that? How much could he care about her? Sure, she had been too shy to make any kind of move herself. But, that was okay, _right? _It wasn't as if she had suddenly become timid over night. Naruto, on the other hand, was a bundle of nervous energy, someone who always leaped before he looked.

"I stopped fainting." Hinata rubbed her fingers together. It had been embarrassing, the way that she passed out, any time Naruto's face accidentally got close to hers. But, he couldn't use that as an excuse. She hadn't done that again for weeks now. "He stopped farting." Her eyes went wide. She could feel her face grow very warm. Those words had just slipped out! As macho as he might seem, Naruto was a bit shy himself, when it came to intimacy. Even with a girl as harmless and patient as Hinata, he grew very anxious and sweaty whenever they were alone. That anxiety sometimes left him rather gassy. But, after he had a few dates under his belt, and the Hokage had given him some medicinal tablets and a dietary supplement, things were fine.

Hinata stood up and walked among the tall daisies. They weren't a very fragrant flower. At least they didn't have a pleasant odor like many blossoms in Ino's shop did. She tried to remember what she knew about daisies, never finding much use for them in her own gardens. They were known as a symbol of childhood innocence. That had her sighing, wondering if Naruto viewed her as _too_ innocent. She couldn't help the way she was. And, she didn't want to change, even for him. At least, not yet. She blushed, thinking about a story she had read. The daisy was said to originate from a Dryad who watched over forests, meadows, and pastures. According to one legend, the nymph Belides was dancing with other nymphs at the edge of the forest when she caught the eye of Vertumnus, the god of the orchards. To escape his unwanted attention, she transformed herself into the flower _Bellis_, which is the daisy's botanical name.

She closed her eyes. Swiftly, she swept her hand out, grasping a number of daisies. She had hoped to end up with one or two at the most. Instead, she held six. Frowning, she was about to toss the flowers from her, but held them close to her chest instead. According to one old game, the number of flowers a maiden grasped in her hand told the number of years that remained until she married. Six years? While she wasn't anywhere near ready for wedlock yet, she didn't want to wait six years!

"What if it took…." She didn't finish that thought: 'what if it took six years to get a kiss?' That was not something that she wanted to contemplate, especially not now. "Naruto-kun…." He was so close to her now, emotionally. So close, yet so far away. Had she done something wrong? Was she lacking something that he was looking for? Or, was she making a big deal out of nothing. Again. She had become more worried about losing his affection after they started dating than before they ever hooked up! "I'm… I'm so hopeless…."

She heard some giggling ahead of her, out amongst the great white expanse. Giggling followed by a voice. That sounded like Kiba. She quickly turned about, and headed back to her earlier spot, but not before grabbing a few more daisies. There was another old game that she knew of, one she never had reason to play before.

Sitting on a large slab of white stone, one with a myriad of glittering copper-colored veins, Hinata looked at the flowers she held in her hand. The daisy derived its name from the foreign words _daes eage_, or 'day's eye,' referring to the way that type of flower opens and closes with the sun. Twirling one of the stems in her hand, she thought back to some things her mother had once told her about daisies. Farmers used to say that Spring wouldn't arrive until one could set a foot on twelve daisies. To dream of daisies in springtime or summer was a lucky omen; but dreams of them in fall or winter meant certain doom. Transplanting wild daisies to a cultivated garden was considered to be very unlucky. Maybe that was why she had never taken up that practice. A famous Kage in another village ate dishes of daisies to relieve himself from his stomach-ulcer pain. Another Kage had his Sake secretly spiked with crushed daisies, since that was once thought to cure insanity. It didn't work. His village had attacked Konoha, and had been killed nearly to the last man.

"Daisies stand for innocence, purity, and gentleness on behalf of both the giver and the receiver." Hinata looked up at the sky. The clouds all looked so fresh, so pure. Purity. She was back to that issue again. "They also say 'You have as many virtues as this plant has petals' or 'I will consider your request'." White daisies like these represented shared feelings of affection. She really hoped that Naruto's feelings were as strong as hers, if not stronger. Daisies could also stand for 'Loyal Love'. She knew that her own heart was true. Was Naruto's? He hadn't begun falling in love with someone else, _had_ he?

A couple of squirrels clambered up a nearby tree, making quite a racket in their little game of 'catch me if you can'. Love was in the air alright, or so it seemed. Hinata placed all but one of the flowers in her lap. She took one firmly in hand, using the fingers of the other hand to pull off a petal. "He loves me." She pulled another. "He loves me not." She paused. If she cheated, she could use the Byakygan to select only those blossoms with an odd number of petals. No. She could never be dishonest, especially not with something like this. "He loves me…."

That first flower had twenty-four petals. The next had thirty, and the one after that had twenty-six. All ended on 'He loves me not.' Squaring her shoulders, Hinata pushed forward, changing the game slightly. Now, there were more than two possible answers. In another foreign tongue, the words were _elle m'aime un peu, beaucoup, passionnément, à la folie, pas du tout, _meaning he loves me a little, a lot, passionately, madly, or not at all. The flowers still didn't want to cooperate. She ended up with two 'not at alls' and one 'a little.' Her heart had soared when the last flower had ended up with 'madly,' until she realized that one remaining petal had been bend under the hub of the daisy.

"It's not as if this is a jutsu," Hinata said, trying to sound confident. Just the same, her heart felt like it had bounced off her stomach before getting tangled up in her lower intestines. She was not superstitious. She did not believe in astrology and things like that, the way that Ten Ten did. "I'm… well… I'm just doing this to pass the time…." Brushing petals off of her pants, she walked over to the filed and collected more daisies. The game resumed.

Time passed. The numbers of clouds multiplied, and their color changed from white to grey, and then from grey to black. It was an ominous sign, meteorologically. It wasn't a very favorable sign metaphorically, either. Hinata sat on her stone, the wind picking up her long indigo hair and tossing it about. She didn't believe in cloud portents any more than she did in flower magic. Just the same, there was a sizeable pyramid of snowy petals at her feet, shielded as they were from the swirling gusts.

"Just one more." She had felt a spattering of small rain drops on her face. "He loves me… he loves me not… he loves me…." She was pulling them out quickly now. There had been a flash of lightning off in the distance.

"Hey! Hinata-chan! There you are!" That was Naruto. Hinata had been so caught up with her game, that she never heard him approach. "Shino said he saw you somewhere over here."

"**Naruto-kun!" **Hinata suddenly felt guilty, as if she had been doing something wrong, or something very foolish. She kicked at the pile of petals with her foot, dispersing them in the wind. "Were… _ummm_… were you looking for me…." For a moment, her hopes jumped way too high, as she fantasized that he had been searching for her to share a passionate kiss. Then, that hope plummeted to the ground, shattering into a million pieces, when she wondered if he might be there to break off their budding relationship.

"Yes I was," Naruto said, flopping unceremoniously onto Hinata's rock, nearly knocking her off in the process. Very close to her now, he wondered why she had gone pale at first, and was now turning red in the face. "It's…." His brash and spunky demeanor evaporated in an instant. He began shuffling his feet ever so slightly. That fact did not escape Hinata's notice. "Well… it's about the two of us…." He coughed. Hinata tensed up, fearing the worst. "I guess… well… it's not going the way I expected…."

"It…." Hinata went stiff. She almost toppled over. She felt her feet grow cold. That chill was climbing up the rest of her with remarkable rapidity. "You…." She let the last flower in her hand fall to the ground, not knowing what the petal count was. "And me…."

"**Here!" **Naruto took out something he had somehow managed to conceal behind his back with one arm. "These are for you!" He practically shoved the flower bouquet up Hinata's nose in his rush to give it to her. "I hope you like them." He looked away at first, but then straightened up, put on his 'I'm going to be Hokage some day' face, and stared at her face intently.

"…" Hinata was speechless. She couldn't begin to count the number of cut blossoms. And, there were so many types. She couldn't pull her eyes off of her botanical bounty to look into Naruto's eyes. She couldn't even get her tongue to work so that she could thank him.

"Well…." Naruto made a face, wrinkling his nose. A few seconds later, he began tugging at one ear, and then the other. After that, he put both arms behind his neck and tried to meet Hinata's gaze, bending this way and that. "Hinata-chan?" His eyes narrowed, and his breathing sped up. It was hard to tell if he was growing angry, worried, or both. "Huh!" he stood up.

"They're…." Hinata managed to look up. "They're…."

"Yes. I know. They're flowers." Naruto kicked at a stone near his foot. "I'm the one who bought them from Ino, _right?" _He kicked at another stone and grimaced. That one was like an iceberg, only a small bit visible. "I _thought _you'd like them." His face grew somewhat perturbed looking. He folded his arms across his chest.

"I mean… ummm…." Hinata wanted to scream. Why was she tongue-tied at a moment like this. She had been hoping and praying for more attention, and she stood close to ruining the moment. "I think…."

"Yeh… so… it's no big deal…." Naruto tried to sound nonchalant. He couldn't keep up the act. In a voice almost too quiet for Hinata to hear, he said "I thought I might finally get a kiss."

"…" Hinata felt like she had been dipped in the coldest lake on earth. Kiss. Naruto had said kiss. Not only that, but he had been hoping for a kiss. He had gotten those flowers, hoping it would prompt just such a thing! And she was sitting there like a statue. After all that nonsense with the flowers!

"I thought I did pretty good," Naruto remarked, perilously close to pouting. "I got _White Camellias_, because they match your eyes, and mean 'you're adorable'. I picked out _Daffodils_ because they mean 'joy and happiness'. I added _Hibiscus _for… you know… 'delicate beauty'." Naruto was counting on his fingers. "_Yellow Jasmine _for 'grace and eloquence'. _Orange Lily_… because I like orange…."

"Wh-… What… What does that one mean…." Hinata managed to string some words together.

"It… _hah hah_… that's funny…." Naruto actually blushed. If Hinata wasn't so mortified, she'd be amazed. "Orange lilies mean "I burn for you'." He had to clear his throat and look up at the ugly looking sky. He didn't see that it was Hinata's face that was on fire now. "_Primrose_. 'I can't live without you'." Those words came out in a rush, difficult to make out. "_Yellow_ and _Orange Roses_. Together they mean… you know…." he became very interested with his feet, the leaves on the ground, and a bird's feather that blew in with the wind.

"Naruto-kun?" Hinata raised one eyebrow.

"Ahem… passionate thoughts…." That had both of them blushing. "R-R-_Red _T-T-_Tulips_." Naruto fiddled with the flap on his weapons pouch. He pictured two lips, before imaging tulips. "That mean 'Believe me'." He swallowed hard. "And 'Declaration of love'. Stuff like that."

Declaration of love? Hinata clasped her hands together. She felt as if she had won the Konoha Power Ball lottery. Looking at the flowers she held, she saw _Asparagus Fern _for 'Fascination'; _White Chrysanthemum _for 'Loyal Love'; and _Gardenia_ for 'You're lovely', 'Secret love', 'Joy', and 'Good luck'. She almost dropped the bouquet when she saw what she thought were _Anthurium_. That would have meant 'Lovers.' She felt relieved when she realized that she was mistaken.

**"Damn."** Naruto wiped away some rain that hit his face. "I should have known this would happen." He began walking away.

That vague comment had Hinata trembling. Did he mean 'I should have known that she wouldn't care about me the same way,' or 'I should have known that she wouldn't want to kiss me'? She had to say something. She couldn't let him leave, thinking that. She felt an even greater sense of dread when a peal of thunder echoed across the great open area.

"I was too big a wuss," Naruto griped. "I was too embarrassed to ask Ino what flowers were good for kissing." He picked up pace, his arms swinging this way and that. "_Mistletoe! _I should have asked if she had mistletoe. I'm such an idiot!" He smacked his forehead." He stopped, turned around, and pointed at Hinata. "You stay right there. I'll be back as fast as I can." With that, he flashed from view.

"Ohhh…." Hinata felt a sense of happiness well up inside her. She put her face down close to the bouquet and inhaled deeply. The rain began falling harder. She never thought to bring an umbrella with her. But, she was not about to move. She would sit on that rock until she was drenched, if need be. She wouldn't budge, even if lightning split the tree behind her. "If he says he'll be back… he'll be back." She nodded her head. "That's his Way of the Ninja."

But, she stiffened up again. He had come expecting her to kiss him, not looking for an excuse to kiss her. That put the onus squarely on _her_. Could she do it? Could she somehow work up that kind of courage. She would try! It didn't have to be some miraculous meeting of the lips. A quick chaste kiss would do. The tallest oak starts off as a tiny acorn, right?

Remembering what she had done before Naruto had surprised her, she picked up the discarded daisy. She pulled off the remaining petals, ending with 'He loves me.' She smiled.

"There never was any doubt…." She managed to say that with a straight face.

**END**


End file.
